After the September 20 national elections, Greece’s new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras opted to form a second coalition government with his ally Panos Kammenos’s Independent Greeks (ANEL). The new cabinet was sworn in on Wednesday morning, September 23. Here are the members of the new Greek government:
Giannis Dragasakis
SYRIZA member and once again Deputy Prime Minister in the Greek government. He studied political science and economics in Greece, as well as abroad. He has worked as an economist, researcher and business consultant.
George Stathakis
SYRIZA’s financial planning officer has been appointed the head of Finance, Growth and Tourism Ministry. Stathakis is a professor of political economy at the University of Crete.
Thodoris Dritsas
SYRIZA’s main shipping advisor has been re-appointed as the Shipping Minister of Shipping and Island Policy. Dritsas was born in Piraeus, in 1947. He studied law at the University of Athens.
Elena Kountoura
The former Greek athlete and Independent Greeks (ANEL) MP will be part of the new Super-Ministry as the Deputy Minister of Tourism. Kountoura was born in Athens. She has been part of Greece’s National Track and Field Team. She was the Greek champion in the High Jump and 100m Hurdles and holder of numerous national records, as well as national and international titles and awards.
Alexis Charitsis
The 38-year-old will take over as the Deputy Minister of the Economy. Charitsis is an engineer from Kalamata, Peloponnese and he had been the Economy Ministry’s general secretary of public investments and ESPA until this past August.
Theodora Tzakri
The new Deputy Minister responsible for Manufacturing Affairs was a PASOK MP from 2004 until 2013 when she was kicked out of the party for voting against the government she was part of during a trust vote. Tzakri had also been appointed as the deputy Interior Minister in 2012.
Christos Spirtzis
The new Minister of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks was born in Athens in 1969. He has operated as Technical Chamber of Greece President since September 2010.
Panagiotis Kouroublis
Kouroublis was appointed the new Minister of Interior and Administrative Reconstruction. He was previously the Minister of Health and in the past, he had served as General Secretary of Welfare. He has been elected three times in the region of Aetolia-Acarnania with PASOK, while in 2012 he was elected in the second Athens district with SYRIZA.
Giannis Balafas
The new Deputy Interior Minister has been a SYRIZA MP since January 2015. He is a member of SYRIZA’s Central Committee and a former member of the party’s Political Secretariat.
Nikos Toskas
The new Deputy Minister of Citizen Protection was previously a Deputy Foreign Minister. He is a retired major general who served at NATO in Brussels and was responsible for defense policies.
Christoforos Vernardakis
The Deputy Minister of Interior and Administrative Reconstruction was a SYRIZA MP candidate in January 2015. He is a political science professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and is also the founder of the public opinion poll company, VPRC.
Giannis Mouzalas
The Deputy Minister for Immigration Policy, Mouzalas, was a Migration Policy Minister for Greece’s caretaker government. He is a gynaecologist and surgeon. According to reports Mouzalas was reluctant to take his post back but accepted upon Tsipras’s insistence.
Maria Kollias Tsaroucha
Kollias- Tsaroucha will reassume her role as Deputy Minister for Macedonia-Thrace, which she held in the previous SYRIZA-ANEL administration. She is an ANEL MP from the region of Serres.
Euklides Tsakalotos
Tsakalotos was reappointed as Minister of Finance. He took on the role in July, after leaving his post as Alternate Foreign Minister for International Economic Relations, Tsakalotos was a Professor at the Economics University of Athens. He was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 1960. In December 2004 he was elected a member of the SYRIZA central committee.
Giorgos Chouliarakis
Chouliarakis is the newly appointed alternate Finance Minister. He was previously the Finance Minister of the caretaker government and was also the chief negotiator for Greece’s third bailout package. Chouliarakis was also a lecturer at the University of Manchester
Trifon Alexiadis Alexiadis returns to his post as Greece’s Deputy Minister of Finance, which he took on after the cabinet reshuffle in July. He had been the vice-president of the tax office employees federation. Alexiadis has also been in charge of designing SYRIZA’s tax policy.
Panos Skourletis
The 52-year-old former Labor and Social Solidarity Minister and SYRIZA spokesman and Alexis Tsipras’ close associate will keep his post as Productive Reconstruction Minister. He was born in Athens and studied Economics at the University of Piraeus.
Giannis Tsironis
Greece ’s Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs was born in Athens, in 1958. He studied chemistry and teaches Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry. He is a founding member of the Ecologists Greens party.
Vangelis Apostolou
Apostolou was named Minister of the Agricultural Development and Food Ministry. He was previously Deputy Minister of Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy. Apostolou was born in Euboea and lives in Chalkida. He used to be a Coalition of the Left and Progress MP in the Euboea region.
Markos Mpolaris
The Vice Minister for Rural Development was born in Xanthi, in 1950.
From 2004 to 2009 he was a member of the opposition who constructively criticized the government policy of New Democracy.
Nikos Filis
The new Education Minister and SYRIZA MP is the party’s former parliamentary spokesperson. Filis is a journalist and has been the director of the AVGI newspaper since 2008.
Sia Anagnostopoulou
She is the new Deputy Education Minister. She has been a SYRIZA MP since January 2015. Anagnostopoulou is also a member of SYRIZA’s Central Committee and sits on the board of directors of the SYRIZA newspaper AVGI.
Kostas Fotakis
The President of the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH) was reappointed as new Greek cabinet’s Research and Innovation Deputy Minister.
Theodosis Pelegrinis
The new Deputy Minister of Education was born in Sudan has been a philosophy professor since 1977. He has studied in the National Kapodistrian university of Athens and received a masters and a philosophy PhD degree from Exeter University in the United Kingdom.
Stavros Kontonis
The Sports Minister was born in Zakynthos, in 1963, and since 1995 he has worked as a lawyer. He is a member of SYRIZA’s Panhellenic Coordinating Committee.
Aristidis Baltas
The new Minister of Culture and former minister of Education was born in Corfu, in 1943, and studied Electrical Engineering at NTUA. He is a member of SYRIZA’s Central Committee.
Giorgos Katrougalos
Katrougalos will keep his post as Labor Minister. During the first SYRIZA-ANEL coalition he had also been the Deputy Minister of Interior and Administrative Reconstruction. He used to be a constitutional expert and professor at the Democritus University of Thrace.
Theano Fotiou
An architect born in Athens who has also worked in Paris. She taught at the Royal College of Art in London, the College of London and various other prestigious institutions. She will be acting as the Deputy Labor and Social Solidarity Minister, as well as Erasmus and Socrates programs coordinator. She has served as a SYRIZA MP on the committee for European Affairs.
Rania Antonopoulos
The new Deputy Labor and Social Solidarity Minister to combat unemployment has worked as an Economics Professor at NYU. She was also a visiting professor at Barnard College, Columbia University and a specialist for the United Nations and the International Labor Organization.
Anastasios Petropoulos
Petropoulos joins the SYRIZA-ANEL administration as the new Deputy minister for Social Insurance. He is a lawyer and owns his own Greek law firm. He had been the head of the Insurance Organization for the Self-Employed (OAEE) since April 2015.
Andreas Xanthos
Greece’s new Minister of Health and Social Insurance from Crete has been a SYRIZA MP since 2012. He was previously the Deputy Health Minister
Pavlos Polakis
The surgeon will take over as Deputy Health Minister. Polakis was previously Minister of Interior and Administrative Reconstruction. He hails from the island Crete. Polakis has been a SYRIZA MP since January 2015 and was previously the mayor of the Cretan village Sfakia.
Nikos Kotzias
Born in 1950, prior to his appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs, he was a professor of political theories of international and European studies at the University of Piraeus.
Giannis Amanatidis
Amanatidis will hold the Deputy Foreign Minister’s post where he had been previously appointed in July. He is a school teacher and has been a SYRIZA MP since 2012. Amanatidis has also participated in various trade unions along the years.
Nikos Xydakis
The former Deputy Minister of Culture now takes on the role of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs was born in Piraeus, in 1958. In the 2015 election he was a candidate with SYRIZA in the second Athens district. He studied at the University of Athens’ School of Dentistry.
Dimitris Mardas
The former Deputy Finance Minister was moved to the Foreign Affairs Ministry where has taken the post of Alternate Foreign Minister for International Economic Relations. Mardas is an Economics professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He completed his postgraduate studies at the University of Paris I-Sorbonne and Paris II-Panthéon.
Panos Kammenos
ANEL leader Kammenos will serve again as the Minister of National Defense. He was born in Athens, in 1965. He studied economics and psychology at the University of Lyon and the Institute of Business Administration and Management.
Dimitris Vitsas
Vitsas is also another minister who received his title during the cabinet reshuffle. The Deputy Minister of Defence is a long time SYRIZA party member. He was a member of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) until the early 1990’s and he is known for having a close relationship with Alexis Tsipras.
Nikos Paraskevopoulos
The Greek Justice Minister used to be a professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki’s Law School. In May 2014 he cosigned the document supporting Tsipras’ candidacy for European Commission President.
Dimitris Papaggelopoulos
He is the new Deputy Justice Minister. Papaggelopoulos was Greece’s Caretaker Justice Minister and was previously the Director of the Greek Secret Services from July until October of 2009. He had also been chief of Greece’s anti-terrorism unit.
Nikos Pappas
A close friend and associate of Greek Prime Minister Tsipras, Pappas will serve his second term State Minister. He is pro-European and wants Greece to remain in the euro, but is also against the Memorandum.
Alekos Flabouraris
Born in Athens, the Government Work Coordination Minister used to be very active in the student movement. He was involved in the resistance against the Greek dictatorship. In recent years, he has been a close advisor for Tsipras.
Terence Quick
The former Greek journalist was appointed as Deputy State Minister. He was born in Thessaloniki, in 1947. He graduated from Panteion University and started working as a journalist in 1966. He is mostly known as a TV news anchor.
Olga Gerovasili
Gerovasili returns as Government Spokesperson and is also appointed as Deputy State minister. She is a doctor and has been a SYRIZA MP since May 2012. Georvasili was the SYRIZA Parliamentary Spokesperson before becoming Government Spokesperson.
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